The Dresden Dolls have posted a video for their new single, “Backstabber” on YouTube. The clip was shot/directed and edited by Michael Pope. Check it out below!

Bringing together tips and interviews from Keyboard magazine, Francis Preve’s “The Remixer’s Bible” is a highly informative guide to electronic music production that should be of interest to pros and novices alike. Case studies are used extensively to provide real-world examples of various production techniques, and the explanations are always clear and easy to understand. The book covers a wide range of topics, including sound design, software, theory, and sampling legal issues. At 248 pages, the book is by no means comprehensive, but it presents a nice overview and many nuggets of useful information. While the art of remixing is what ties the book together, much of the material would also be of interest to those looking to learn more about digital recording/production in general. “The Remixers Bible” also includes a CD-Rom of demo software and sample session files from such artists as Coldcut and Meat Beat Manifesto.


Help support Chaos Control by purchasing this book through Amazon!

By making it possible to bypass traditional media and distribution channels, the internet has proven to be a powerful medium for bands and music fans to connect. New artists willing to put in the effort can now reach mass audiences without a record deal, and established acts who might not get the media attention they once did can easily reach their long-time fans. But what if you happen to have a name that actually makes it more DIFFICULT for people to find you?

One such band would be The The. I haven’t been hearing much about them in recent years, so I make it a point to periodically look to the internet for news and release info. However, searching for “The The” tends to bring up many more non-relevant listings than a query for a less-known band with more unique words in their name. Curious as to what The The’s principle member Matt Johnson thinks about that, I contacted him through his management. Here’s what he had to say:

“Yes, this is certainly an interesting question you raise. It has been raised before and of course I have thought about it and received numerous complaints about it too. Obviously, I cannot change the name of my band at this late stage but what we have tried to do is to get Sony (who own the bulk of the back catalogue) to contact the various online retailers to tweak their search engines to accommodate the name. Some have responded to this, iTunes, Amazon for instance. Some have yet to do this. It also depends on how you type the name - The The, “The The”, TheThe.

Looking at the brighter side, it does make it harder to find unauthorized recordings, bootlegs, free downloads of The The, which I’m quite happy about. Also, in the Internet Age when people are becoming increasingly spoilt and expect to find anything/everything they want instantly maybe it’s a good thing that TheThe has gone back to being the underground, word of mouth band it always was? Maybe it’s good for people to have to dig around a little to find the things they want rather than having everything served up to their ears instantaneously and with barely a finger lifted?”

• Visit the official The The website

(photograph by Johanna Saint Michaels)

Tanya Donelly, formerly of Throwing Muses, Belly, and The Breeders, is back with a new CD, and it was recorded in a pretty unique way. On her official website, Tanya posted this about the process of making “THIS HUNGRY LIFE” :

“This album was recorded during a heat wave in front of a live, patient audience over two nights in Bellows Falls, VT at the Windham, a hotel closed since the 80s except for its small club. The idea was more ‘album recorded live’ than ‘live album’; there were stops and starts, multiple takes, endless tunings, lots of sweating and a little swearing. Every couple of songs, the whole roomful of us would pour out onto the street to let our clothes dry and to breathe some new air. We were all pretty familiar by the end of the weekend. Recording can be tedious and shows nerve-wracking; this was neither. It was a blast, and I loved every second.”

“THIS HUNGRY LIFE” is out now on Eleven Thirty Records. If you order it directly from tanyadonelly.com, it comes autographed!

A random note about Tanya Donelly - back in the mid 90’s I interviewed her for Boston Rock Magazine about the then-new project Belly. She’d said that one of their first shows was at NY’s The Limelight, ‘a bit odd because it is a GOTH club.’ (well it wasn’t totally a goth club, but they certainly did attract that crowd on particular nights.) Between the time the article left my hands and publication someone (perhaps with the aid of spell check?) accidentally changed the work ‘goth’ to ‘GOLF’! This of course completely changed the meaning and made me seem a bit stupid, but I thought it was kind of funny. I swear my original manuscript said ‘goth’!

Click here to visit the Tanya Donelly website.
Click here to visit the Eleven Thirty Records website.

Yesterday I got to attend Sonic The Hedgehog’s 15th birthday celebration in NY (part of the annual Digital Life consumer electronics show.) Sonic had a huge cake, which he generously shared with industry and media attendees. In recent years, a few people have asked if I got the name “Chaos Control’ from the games, as the term is used in them to describe powers related to the “Chaos Emeralds.” However, this is not the case, The hedgehog was a decade old when ‘Chaos Control’ was introduced (in the game “Sonic Advance 2.”)

Beginning on November 30 THE TANK in New York City will be presenting the Blip Festival, “a four-day celebration of over 30 international artists exploring the untapped potential of low-bit video game and home computers used as creative tools.”

Familiar devices are pushed in new directions with startling results — Nintendo Entertainment Systems and Game Boys roaring with futuristic floor-stomping rhythm and fist-waving melody, art-damaged Sega hardware generating fluctuating and abstracted video patterns — and that’s only the beginning. An exploration of the chiptune idiom and its close relatives, the Blip Festival is the biggest and most comprehensive event in the history of the form, and will include daily workshops, art installations, and nightly music performances boasting an international roster larger and more far-reaching than any previous event of its kind. Small sounds at large scales pushed to the limit at high volumes — the Blip Festival is an unprecedented event that is not to be missed.

For more information on the event and the performers, check out the Blip Festival website at : http://www.blipfestival.org/.